When our customers start using Triggre, we usually observe several phases that they go through. In our last two blogs, we described how growing insights and innovativeness led our customer NCR to build three applications to take the hassle out of certain processes.

In this last blog of the series, we’d like to discuss the third phase, in which NCR, now instilled with evolved skills, developed a more complex application: the inbound routing guide.

Mapping out the process independently

Suppliers are allowed to send packages – which, for example, contain ordered parts – to NCR’s distribution center at the expense of NCR. In the past, courier services were used for heavy shipments, but that didn’t turn out to be an economical way of working.

To control cost, it’s often useful to combine several packages and send them at once, even if this means a package will arrive one day later – it doesn’t make a difference to the process.

As NCR had successfully automated three processes using Triggre, it wondered if it could build an application for this shipping process, too. An important condition was to keep it as simple as possible for suppliers.

Now that NCR had gained the necessary experience, it mapped out and reorganized the entire process independently. Whereas during the first phase they asked Triggre to provide insight into the process, this time around, they only requested that we built the application.

Building the application was very complex – especially because several forms of transportation (air, sea, and road) were involved, each of which incurs different costs, but it worked.

Profitable with positive ‘side effects’

Within two months, the costs of investment were recovered. The application has saved NCR a lot in terms of expenses at a global level. Moreover, the process was designed in such a way that it had very positive unintended ‘side effects.’

For example, the company gained insight into the number of packages that were sent separately. This was important information, as NCR had previously instructed its suppliers to combine several packages into one shipment.

When using the inbound routing guide, they discovered that few of them actually did this. However, the application provides such clarity and ease of use that suppliers are currently following through on it.

NCR already has plans to expand the application to other logistic centers, which will only require small adaptations. It is yet another example of the power of Triggre: once you unleash its possibilities, the sky is the limit!